


Her Touch, Priceless and Unforgettable.

by VaporLace



Category: A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986 (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Depression, Emotional Hurt, F/F, Pining, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VaporLace/pseuds/VaporLace
Summary: Michelle Cheung loves Sam Wong, but can't see hope for reconciling her conservative life with one that allows her and Sam to be together. Her regimented daily schedule has been disrupted, devolving more and more into endless pining for somebody she is increasingly convinced she cannot have.
Relationships: Michelle Cheung | Cheung Fong Ha/Sam Wong | Wong Ka Yan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Her Touch, Priceless and Unforgettable.

It had been nearly two months since she had last set eyes on her, and Michelle Cheung wondered, almost hourly at this point, if it had all been destined to wind up this way from the beginning.

Her own refusal to acknowledge how she felt for Sam Wong, or rather her refusal and fearful reluctance to own her love for the fact that it was, had acted as the weight that dragged her down and far away from Sam’s boat, and these past days and weeks had been the image of that boat’s bottom growing steadily more and more distant, with Michelle sinking further and further into the deep-dark of an ocean of loneliness.

She thought hard and long about Sam’s voice. Her laughter.

She fought hard to picture her face. Her smile. The way her hair fell messy but perfect around her shoulders.

These thoughts cut through the loneliness and sadness, albeit briefly. She thought of that moment in Sam Wong’s apartment. She thought of the rising heat in her chest- how everything in that moment felt so close, so intimate. Her cheeks flushed red with embarrassed excitement, the dull sensations of arousal at Sam’s touch. She thought of the smell of her perfume, the lingering scent of her shampoo, the warmth of her breath, the taste of her lip gloss, tinged with tequila and citrus.  
  
And then she remembered how fear and selfishness made her panic, bolt, and throw the night away.

A peel of thunder roused her from this stilted memory and pushed her back into the darkness of her room on a stormy Monday morning

The rains were coming, and Michelle thought it was appropriate, suiting her mood. Her neighborhood mirrored her life, she thought – carefully cultivated, tended, and regulated, and drenched and dour with the gray morning light and rumbling thunder.

She knew she would have to get out of her bed soon, get dressed, go to work. It was the same thing it always had been. Careful, comfortable, safe, and inoffensive.

Michelle had quickly grown to hate this fact.

For one day and one evening she’d tasted something new, felt something wholly alien to her. The trip to Sai Kung had been like an adventurer into another world – one where she was not beholden to the expectations of others. Everything – the bike trip, the village, the beach…

The stars…

Michelle felt her eyes starting to burn as tears pooled at their corners, and she let herself lay there as they rolled down her cheeks, making the pillowcase damp as she stared, dead and alive all at once, out into a world she knew she’d have to face before long.  
Almost every day so far had been a struggle against intense regret.

The day after she walked out on Sam Wong, she had been able to ignore it all, to throw herself so headlong and face first into her work that it seemed as if letting go of Sam wouldn’t be so hard after all. Work was swamped, she had something to occupy her, and for those first few days, things returned to normal. She would wake, dress, go to work, come home, eat, watch television with her mother, shower, and go to bed, ready to start over in the morning.

If anything, it seemed to have healed the growing rift between her and her mother, who was seemingly content with their reunion with the status quo. While this was a relief for those first few days, it was that single facet of this new “life after Sam” that set the spinning plates awry. Whenever Michelle saw how happy her mother was that things were going back to normal, she grew resentful. When she confronted herself about it – in private of course; in the shower, in bed, on the commuter train towards the office - that resentment began turning to frustration.  
This frustration distracted her. Her work, of course, didn’t suffer, at least it hadn’t so far – throwing herself into paperwork and reports was the one thing she could do to tune out her screaming thoughts and regrets. But her relationship with her mother was beginning to grate on her, always needing to bite her tongue, sometimes to the point she thought she’d bite clean through.

But she was afraid, and so she did nothing but bottle it up.

Wake. Work. Eat. Shower. Sleep.

Soon she stopped watching television with her mother. It was too much to even be around her. She began moving directly to her room after cleaning up after supper, where she would lie in her bed and stew, cry and brood. Sometimes, she’d fall asleep there and wake up and be forced to rush to get ready for work.

Of course, her mother noticed this. She seemed to notice something whenever it was an opportunity for critique these days. Whenever she would breech the subject, however, Michelle simply couldn’t abide by it. Deflection after deflection. Minimize it to make it go away. She absolutely could not deal with the fear or uncertainty of what honesty about her indiscretion would truly mean for her relationship with her mother.  
Her mother knew something was bothering her, and despite her growing resentment, Michelle was terrified of causing her mother shame or disappointment. She was terrified of having to leave her mother in the event of a falling out. Who would take care of her mother if she weren’t there? What kind of daughter would she be if she abandoned the woman who cared for her when it came to be her turn to return the favor?

That gave way to other paths of thinking on this rainy Monday. Where in fact did sit her future? Eight weeks ago, she was fantasizing about life with a woman she’d known for only a handful of days – imagining what life would be like with her. But she’d walked out on that future, so what did this new one hold?

Would she and her mother immigrate once Hong Kong was handed over to the PRC? Where would they go? Japan? Australia? Canada, the U.S.? She thought of Sam’s brother – he lived in San Francisco, a world apart. Was he happy after leaving his homeland all those years ago?

Would she be happy if she left Hong Kong? Would her mother go with her? If she didn’t, would she make herself stay? The handover scared Michelle – it scared many of her co-workers at the office as well. Hong Kong wasn’t perfect as it stood, but she worried for its future. For her future. For the future of the people she cared about.

It all seemed so hopeless.

Her alarm buzzed. She ignored it.

Again, it buzzed. Again, she pretended it was nothing.

For fifteen minutes she laid on her side, clutching the plush bear that shared her bed, and staring out her window at the rain softly pelting the glass of the pane. The morning light cast everything in gray and blue and purple. The wet asphalt reflected red and white beams of the occasional car or taxi lolling by at a snail’s pace on the residential street.

  
She’d been crying again, because as ever, her thoughts went back to Sam Wong.  
To her eyes, bright and chock-full of exuberant life. Her hair, the perfect brunette. To the way the fabric of her jacket hugged the curve of her shoulder that night, a powerful, exciting, modern woman. Bold, fashionable, beautiful. Everything Michelle dreamed of being, but now dreamed only of being with.

She thought of Sam’s smile. Her lips. The taste of her.

Arousal came, but was dampened back down again by sadness and despair.

The alarm came again and her sense of responsibility finally pried her from her pillow, and she dragged herself into the bathroom and then into the shower, where she stared at the drain, swallowing down the water as it rolled off her, intermingling with tears brought forth by the other woman she simply couldn’t stop thinking about – her mother.

  
What would her mother think?

  
“Such rotten luck I have, to be stuck with such a rotten daughter.” She whispered in mocking spite beneath the dull roar of the showerhead.

  
To think she’d fall for another woman, to think!

  
There was no way her mother would ever try to understand, let alone come around, she knew it, she just knew it. The imagined argument always ended the same way – with Michelle being forced to choose between her Mother or Sam – a decision she didn’t think she’d be strong enough to make.

She eyed it, in the corner of the shower there, the razor she used for her legs – she wondered about it, sitting there – eying her back. It was a confusing notion, to be unsure of whether or not she could bring herself to use it for something beyond its intended scope – to take her away from needing to choose between one or the other – the forbidden third option. That reticence to contemplate ending this despair that way gave her a bit of hope, and jolted her out of the depressive haze – that and the thrumming of her mother’s fist on the bathroom door.

“Fong Ha!” Her mother hollered. “It has been half an hour! You’ll be late!”

The jolt had served to knock her out of this depressive stupor, at least temporarily, and she shut off the water, calling out to reassure her mother that all was well, another white lie in a long string of white lies.

  
Michelle stepped out of the shower and stared at herself in the mirror over the sink – despite being clean she hardly looked rested or relaxed. Michelle sighed, a deep exhalation of resignation to one more day.

  
One more day of Michelle Cheung, who took no chances or bad risks.

Michelle Cheung, who woke up, went to work, came home, ate dinner, watched television, and went to bed to do it all over in the morning.

  
Michelle Cheung, who was a pale reflection of the woman who had been born on the beach one night in Sai Kung in 1986, but who died shortly thereafter, tangled in the grasp of Sam Wong, the woman she wanted but could never let herself have.


End file.
